I would rather be stuck in a room full of stoners high on cannabis than stuck in a room full of drunks. The cannabis group would cook up a large meal for everyone, rent out some videos and all chill out for the day while eating dope cookies and laughing at everything.

The drunks group would be abusive, some would be fighting 1 would smack over his missus 1 would accuse his missus of looking at his mate so smack her over, then the girls would all join in and a cat fight would start. Meanwhile the police would be called but they would ask first how many at the party? A couple of hundred here and some are fighting. Police response would be - your breaking up we can't hear you...dial tone.

Kaos36: I would rather be stuck in a room full of stoners high on cannabis than stuck in a room full of drunks. The cannabis group would cook up a large meal for everyone, rent out some videos and all chill out for the day while eating dope cookies and laughing at everything.

The drunks group would be abusive, some would be fighting 1 would smack over his missus 1 would accuse his missus of looking at his mate so smack her over, then the girls would all join in and a cat fight would start. Meanwhile the police would be called but they would ask first how many at the party? A couple of hundred here and some are fighting. Police response would be - your breaking up we can't hear you...dial tone.

Beats me as to why but some people seem to think there is a real difference between alcohol and cannabis. Alcohol is OK, but cannabis is BAD!

Me, I think the alcohol laws are really sensible:

Can't do it before 18 (or we think you are probably an adult)

Can't do it and drive (don't give me any of that "Stoners are safe drivers, just slow drivers" crap)

Work has the right to get really mad if you do it and turn up to work.

Can't get completely wasted in public and cause trouble. But then causing trouble in public sober is not really allowed anyway.

I have a really hard time seeing why we can't apply something similar to cannabis.

If I was really cynical I would say it is something to do with the fact that cannabis can be easily grown at home and therefore it would be difficult to tax the way tobacco and alcohol is.

But it can't be that simple can it?

The completely ridiculous Mexican situation has arisen because violent gangs control the drug trade.

Just because one bad thing (alcohol) is allowed, does not make it a good argument to allow another bad thing. That is pretty dumb logic.

Like wise just because you can make good rope from pot does not mean it should be legal to smoke. Again dumb logic.

Smoke less, think more ;p

OK, so from that surely flows the question: Why allow bad things at all?

If there is an argument for alcohol why should it not apply to cannabis? If a thing is bad, why allow it?

Alcohol is really legal due to historical coincidence. The people who counted (and count now) like alcohol more than cannabis. This is very similar to fireworks, for a week a year we suspend very sensible explosives laws because... well, we just do OK.

Some stuff is legal (alcohol), some stuff isn't (cannabis), some stuff is legal at certain times of the year (fireworks). All could been seen as equally 'bad'.

I know you are at the sharp end and I agree there is good reason for alcohol to be banned.

It can't be that hard to make something that tastes like beer / wine / whatever but doesn't have the huge social cost that alcohol does. Pick any of the horror stories of abuse or violence in the paper and I would bet millions that alcohol has a place there somewhere.

But, sadly, alcohol is here to stay. So, my question is how do we change the culture? How do we make alcohol (and maybe one day cannabis) accessible, but the behavior, the violence and abuse, unacceptable?

I also don't think it is impossible. We used to have a big drink driving culture in NZ, some people still do it but it is no in any way as acceptable as it was in the 1970s or 80s.

crackrdbycracku: It can't be that hard to make something that tastes like beer / wine / whatever but doesn't have the huge social cost that alcohol does.

Ever heard of Claytons ( The drink you have when you're not having a drink ) An 80's(?) fail at trying to do this.

It requires a cultural change, probably over a generation or more, to achieve anything like the responsible attitude we'd all like to think we do/or-should have. And lowering the drinking age a few years back was a step in the wrong direct me-thinks. It'll take a little longer to move back now.

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